Jim Steiner! Write to me! jdrjdrjdr@hotmail.com

AM:
> You are missing the fact that the 300 minutes
> for $50 can be used over many months....

Ohhhhhh. I thought it was a per month thing, like cell-phone minutes. Well, now, that changes EVERYTHING (though it's still $0.16 / minute)

And here's something I've been noticing in Manhattan. Verizon has set up hot-spots around the city. If you have a Verizon DSL home account (which I do), access is free. If a Verizon "hot spot" is near a Starbucks, you can get online via Verizon BUT the connection will keep dropping or will be enormously sluggish -- as if the two wi-fis are battling it out.

So....what happened to the balance of my minutes? I had a 300/$50 pkg and had something like 200 minutes left. Are they screwing me out of the remainder?

Troll-man:

You are missing the fact that the 300 minutes for $50 can be used over many months....It's been taking me several months to use it up.

The point is convenient, cheap access where I didn't have to think about the cost because I could just go in, get email, and log off, using up time in 10 minute chunks. With their previous rules, I could have 30 trips of less than 10 minutes with that plan - that will cost me $300 now (at $10 minutes per pop) or about $120 (3 prepaid months).

This just made the service unusable and Starbucks should be worried. They will see their usage (and associated visits) drop like a stone.

I pay those types of rates. In the Rochester area in any T-Mobile hotspot when my browser starts, it goes to a T-Mobile Login page. I can get a month of access for 39.99, hourly for .10$ per minute, or a 10$ day pass.

I have left a few angry notes at Starbucks, and at Borders/Barnes & Nobles, telling tham that they are losing my business because of their WiFi pricing. I found a local company(Forenzia) which does free (registration req.)internet access. Best of all, one of their locations is Jeremiah's Tavern. Free internet and good beer beats Higway Robbery and coffee.

I think the same thing is even more true for GPRS in selected countries. At 3 dollar per megabyte or so, it is just to expensive. It might work for checking your mail, if you don't suffer so much from spam and can avoid the attachements, but I do think that any flat fee plan would have caused mass apeal, while now nobody uses it.
----
Douwe Osinga
http://douweosinga.com

Of course, $50 for 300 is a lot more than $29.99 for unlimitwed access.

Edited by author 08-07-2003 07:55 PM
Umm... looks like Shirky's calculator is upside down. If 300 minutes costs $50, that's 6 *minutes per dollar* (300min/$50). The cents per minute is about 17 cents per minute ($50/300min=$0.166.../min).

In any case, that price is IF and ONLY IF one uses all 300 minutes. That's about 10 minutes every day. If one uses less than that, the price per minute goes up.

Suppose you only go to Starbucks once a week, and check your mail while waiting (and it takes 10 minutes), then you only use 50 minutes that month for the same $50 -- THAT costs a dollar a minute -- The SAME PRICE as if one had used the $10 a day pass on 5 days for 10 minutes each.

On the other hand, if you used you day pass for 20 minutes each of those 5 times, you're down to 50 cents a minute!

If you used your day pass for 2 hours, your price is now down to 17 cents a minute again.

Bottom line: If your only choices were $50/300 per month, or $10/day, as needed, the best deal would depend wholly on your usage pattern.

If you needed 10 minutes a day, EVERY DAY, then $50 for 300 makes sense (@ $0.16/min). But if you need access only a few days of the month for more than 10 minutes each time, or if you need it only once a month for 1 hour or more, or if you need it several times a month for a fairly long time... $10/day starts to look good.

Cost Analysis of $10/day Wireless access plan
  For different usage patterns
    Showing Dollars Per Minute

Mnth|....|--------Total Minutes Used During Month--------|
Cost|Days|..10...|..50...|..300..|..480..|..1440*|..1800 |
 $10|...1|$ 1.000|$ 0.200|$ 0.033|$ 0.021|$ 0.007|..N/A..|
 $50|...5|$ 5.000|$ 1.000|$ 0.167|$ 0.104|$ 0.035|$ 0.028|
$100|..10|$10.000|$ 2.000|$ 0.333|$ 0.208|$ 0.069|$ 0.058|
$150|..15|..N/A..|$ 3.000|$ 0.500|$ 0.313|$ 0.104|$ 0.083|
$200|..20|..N/A..|$ 4.000|$ 0.667|$ 0.417|$ 0.139|$ 0.111|
$250|..25|..N/A..|$ 5.000|$ 0.833|$ 0.521|$ 0.174|$ 0.139|
$300|..30|..N/A..|$ 6.000|$ 1.000|$ 0.625|$ 0.208|$ 0.167|

300 = 5 hrs, 480 = 8 hrs, 1440 = 24 hrs*,
1800 = 1 hr/day times 30 days
* Theoretical daily maximum

I think an actual link to the Shirky oeuvre cited would be helpful.

Why doesn't anybody actually check T-Mobile's rates before they make such ridiculous posts? I've been a VERY happy Mobilestar/T-Mobile Broadband/T-Mobile Hotspot user for quite some time now. And I've NEVER paid rates like this guy is talking about. Here's the REAL story:

http://www.t-mobile.com/hotspot/services_plans.htm

I thought they went to a unlimited $29/month plan. As I understand, if you have a $29 plan, Internet would be $19/month. Just Internet only is $29. See this forum:

http://www.howardforums.com/showthread.php...age=15&pagenumber=1

I wonder how do you arrive to 6 cents per minute
from $50 for 300 minutes? Divide 300 by 50 or what? :-)

You could have elective surgery at a dollar a minute? Really! Man, if I knew where I could get surgery for $60 an hour, I'd be at that hospital in a heartbeat.... or outside in the line when the authorities come to shut it down for health violations.